Chapter 19: To Make Amends
Sam found Meg smoking outside, leaning against the fencing that cordoned off his building's Dumpster. Her aura stood out in the night, ultraviolet and smudged with boiling spurts of indigo so intense that not even what looked like the tail end of a chain-smoking session could calm it. She was still caught in her internal conflict, warring with herself over the return of a part of her life that she must've believed she'd put firmly behind her, if not as willingly as she thought she'd had.
"I managed to last a week this time," Meg remarked in greeting, examining the orange glow of her latest cigarette as she blew a stream of smoke into the air. The pinprick of light cast dark shadows across her face, hollowing her eyes into inscrutable black pits. "Benny will be mad when I get back. He went and bought so many nicotine patches for no reason."
"I don't think he'll be mad," Sam said as he sat down on the top step beneath the stoop to give her some space. "He'll be more worried than anything."
Meg scoffed, but a flicker of agreement ran across her aura, cutting through the inky indigo for a moment. They both knew Benny was too good-natured to be concerned with perceived failures that happened outside of the kitchen.
"Last time I saw Hannah, she was just Cas's kid sister. She wore penny loafers and always tagged along with us when she could, as younger siblings do," she said, propping the cigarette back into the corner of her mouth and crossing her arms tight over her chest. "She was so naïve. But then, just about everyone in our stick poke town was, so she can't be blamed for that."
Outside of Lawrence, Sam knew it became farmland quickly, the stretches of fields and occasional woodland only occasionally broken by smaller snatches of civilization here and there. His mother hailed from such a town; her empty grave in the same plot as every Campbell before her.
"I never took you for a farm girl."
"I did a good job at reinventing myself," Meg said with a strange mix of pride and bitterness. "I never wanted to stay in that town for the rest of my life. Better to die free than live somewhere that just wanted to hold me down."
There was a minute of not quite comfortable silence where Meg's cigarette dwindled, and Sam couldn't help but think of his mother. He didn't think he'd ever draw a connection between her and Meg, but Mary Winchester had also refused to let a small town hold her down. She'd just found escape in the form of John, and not necessarily in Lawrence itself.
Meg abruptly let her cigarette drop, crushing it beneath her heel with more force than necessary.
"He knows I'm in the city, doesn't he?"
Sam nodded, setting his chin in his hand and studying her aura as much as he could without openly staring at Meg. The light above the door buzzed intermittently, the loudest sound in the surprisingly quiet back alley.
"Gabe let it slip when we met up with him a few days ago, but Cas already thought he saw you at the Roadhouse when it burned down."
Meg grunted, pulling out a fresh cigarette and rolling it between her fingers like a magic coin act, the action so subconscious for her that she didn't even look down at it. Her eyes were fixed ahead, where the alley stretched down some distance before connecting with a street.
"I saw him too. Just a glimpse. He was with that idiot brother of yours," Meg said, huffing out a laugh as a foreign red hue seeped into her aura. "Casper always was a sucker for the bad boys with pretty faces."
She looked towards him, and the sudden flare of righteous anger in her aura made Sam lean back just the slightest. That color he was familiar with, and he never liked being anywhere near Meg when she got like this.
"Dean better not hurt him."
"He won't," Sam assured, watching with a surprisingly strong sense of relief as Meg's aura settled back down. "Not like that. I think it's quite the opposite with them."
"If you say so," she replied doubtfully, cigarette now twirling between her deft fingers like a pinwheel. "But excuse me if I remain unconvinced of his ability to be tender with people. He broke Benny's heart after all."
Sam's mind ground to a shrieking halt, all maudlin thoughts of his mother dissipating like vapor.
"He what?"
"You didn't know?" Meg asked, sounding genuinely surprised as the cigarette halted in her hand. "They had a bit of a fling when Dean worked at the Roadhouse. It only lasted a few weeks or so before Dean-o got spooked. Guess he couldn't handle a sexuality crisis, so he ghosted Benny. Benny was more hurt he'd lost a friend, to be honest, but Dean still hurt him when he quit."
The only reason Sam didn't gape was because he was too busy processing the bombshell that had been dropped at his feet to devote precious brainpower to powering physical reactions. Out of all the theories he'd tossed around as to why Dean had suddenly left his Roadhouse cooking position and never spoke of Benny, he'd never considered that.
But, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense in a surprisingly logical way. Dean didn't process emotions in a healthy manner, and more often than not, he ran from them. He'd had a close friendship with Benny, a connection that had come more easily than most friendships did for his brother. Beyond the initial shell shock, Sam found that he wasn't in the least bit surprised that Dean had slept with Benny and the promptly ran away from him and a whole aspect of himself in the process.
"You didn't know," Meg surmised with a wince. "Damn. Don't tell Benny I said anything."
"I won't," Sam promised, running a hand through his hair. "Dean would never tell me why he and Benny fell out."
"I should've anticipated that. Perhaps Dean doesn't confide everything with his precious baby brother."
Sam ignored the jab, mostly because he already knew it to be true. He'd never known many details about Dean's activities with the Mayhem Arena after the contract with Crowley, and he wasn't privy to much of Dean's emotional thoughts. Sure, Dean told him much more than he did with anyone else (probably with the notable exception of Lisa), but that wasn't exactly much. Sam relied on reading his brother's aura and his natural body language, reading between the gaps his halted words held with the expertise of close brotherhood.
Meg sighed as she pulled out a lighter, coaxing a flame from it with a nimble thumb. Her aura was largely devoid of the conflicted indigo now, replaced with a tired shade of desaturated violet.
"Cas and I parted on less than ideal terms after a childhood of friendship. He wanted me to come to college with him because he knew I was smart enough, and I wanted him to come to Lawrence so that we could both be free and he could chase after all the pretty bad boys he wanted without a whole prejudiced town breathing down his neck," she confessed, waiting for the cigarette to light properly before taking a long deep drag.
Sam watched her aura as she smoked. When she spoke of Cas, it turned a pretty shade of red-violet that he now knew was the shape of love that it was; an old, heart wrenching platonic love that was battered and shriveled from years of neglect and repression from Meg's attempt to put her old friendship behind her.
He'd never seen the color in her aura and wondered if it had once been more prevalent in the past when she'd still been friends with Cas. Love was one of the few things that could permanently change auras past the early years of life where colors were outgrown as easily as wardrobes.
"Obviously, our interests didn't align," Meg exhaled, blue-grey smoke whooshing out in a cloud that hung in the alley. There was no wind tonight to disperse it. "We both wanted to escape, but in different ways. Cas was still a bit under his parents' thumb, and I was overcompensating for fear I would end up back under the thumb I escaped. We argued on the night we graduated high school. I tried so hard to convince him to come with me, but he was stubborn. Cas could be so stubborn when he wanted to be."
Another drag, this time shorter and shallower than Meg let out through her nose. She'd reek of smoke by the time she was done with the pack (and she would finish the pack out here), but Sam was used to the smell on her. It was one of those things that he didn't like but had grown accustomed to, like being on bad terms with his ex and sleeping on a mattress that was too short to accommodate him.
"Funny, how shit works out," she whispered in a far-off tone before pushing off of the fencing and taking a single step forward to look at him with a curious expression.
"Why are you out here with me?"
"I figured someone should check on you," Sam shrugged, tilting his head a bit so he could look at her with his own curiosity. "You still want to be friends with him, don't you?"
Meg's face twisted into a sneer, but her non-answer in the form of an aggressive suck on her cigarette confirmed what the red-violet in her aura told Sam.
"It doesn't matter," she said with a mouthful of smoke and eyes full of bitterness. "It's too dangerous. I've made my bed, and now I have to lie in it."
"You don't have to. You're thinking of leaving Lawrence, aren't you?" Sam asked, taking a bit of a risk. He'd seen the underlying idea in her aura; a restlessness that reminded him of Gabe and Dean.
I'm surrounded by people that run. None of them are cowards, but they all run regardless.
In a way, Sam too was a runner. Sure, he'd stood up for himself and what he wanted from his life when he'd left home for college, but he'd run from the Winchester mantle in other ways. Everything he'd learned and all the violence he was capable of were things he'd run from, but he couldn't escape those any more than Dean could escape who he liked, or Meg could forget about a friendship that looked capable of lasting a lifetime, or Gabe could turn his back on a city that needed him and someone that cared for him too much to see him go.
"Maybe," she said slowly, trying out the concept for size. "Benny said he'd take me away if I wanted to. He loved the Roadhouse, but it's gone now, and we're both in limbo. It'd be easy, to leave and head in whatever direction we chose."
Sam blinked. Meg was throwing him all sorts of curveballs tonight.
"Are you two…?"
Meg snorted, and for the first time since he'd arrived smiled something that could constitute as a grin.
"Not quite. He's a good friend, but it's complicated. Like I said, we're in limbo."
Sam arched an eyebrow but accepted her confusing answer when her aura only confirmed what she said. They weren't together in that sense; might not ever be, but things were up in the air, just as many other things were in Lawrence.
The important thing is that they've got each other. It's good to have someone in times like this.
Somewhere inside, footsteps began to come their way, hard enough to be heard from their side. Meg looked up sharply at the door, and Sam stood, just managing to catch a faint trace of a blue aura before the door was flung open hard enough to make it slam against the brickwork.
Cas emerged in a massive display of energy, every shade of blue imaginable extending upward and out from him in a wing shape just like Gabe's aura did when he got emotional. Lightning fizzled between his shoulders, bright enough to left afterimages imprinted on Sam's irises and sharp enough to cut through the cerulean and navy that chased each other around in agitated bursts timed perfectly with his gasping breaths.
For a moment, they all stood frozen in their positions. Sam stared at Cas and his aura (he was going to pay close attention to it from now on because something was more than odd about his aura and Gabe's), while Cas and Meg stared at each other, separated only by a pair of stairs and Sam, who realized how awkward his position had become.
Right, I'm impeding an extremely important reunion between childhood friends. Remove yourself from the situation, Winchester.
"Um, I should…" he started before trailing off, deciding to just slip past Cas and let the two of them work it out.
Brushing past Cas' aura felt like what Sam imagined taking a dip into a raging ocean would be like. Waves of blue cascaded over him, allowing him to pick up what Cas was feeling so acutely and accurately (surprise, sadness, happinessconfusionangerbitter-hope, so much hope-) that he had to bite his tongue and keep from shivering at the sensation when he stepped inside.
The last glimpse Sam got of Meg before the door shut was her conflicted face, eyes bright in her too pale and purposefully blank face, her whole visage screened by periwinkle smoke that blurred her features.
"Still dressing like a preacher's son, huh?" she said, putting her smokescreen to rest by letting her cigarette drop into a puddle with a faint sizzle that was cut off by the door.
"He's missed her."
Sam turned to see Hannah a few feet down the hall, leaning against the wall just by the alcove that held the ice machine. She wore her coat and a painfully nostalgic face, her smile small and sweet as her earthy aura churned with reminiscence colored a pinkish color that brought to mind crushed seashells.
"He's always been horrible at letting things go," she continued, crossing her feet at the ankles and sighing. "I knew when he said he'd be transferring to LU that it was inevitable. It's why I came here against our parent's wishes."
"Do they know?" Sam asked, knowing she'd understand what he meant.
She shook her head, her lips turning down into a shadow of her former smile.
"I'm sure they suspect. But my brother's sexuality is that elephant in the room they try to ignore as if it'll make it go away or something," she scoffed, a faint air of derision tainting her aura. "They may have taken me in, and I'll be grateful to them for that, but lately, Cas has been there for me more than they ever have."
"You're a good sister," Sam said truthfully. Hannah and Cas were a different brand of siblings than he and Dean, but there was no less loyalty.
"I try to be," she said, ducking her head momentarily with embarrassment. "I was too naïve when he needed me most. I won't be naïve now."
"You won't be," Sam said, smiling gently at her. He could see how she might've been at one point; a product of her upbringing and environment, but not anymore. She was still evolving, but he could see a thin thread of iron resolve in her aura and a smattering of lapis lazuli speckles that suggested some part of Hannah was changing now that she was in college.
"I hope so," she murmured, briefly pleased before her aura took a darker turn.
"Sam…there's something else you need to know about what I saw down in that basement," she admitted, taking a deep, fortifying breath.
"What is it?" Sam asked, mentally steeling himself for whatever she was about to say. He could see in her aura that it involved him somehow.
"Besides the Enochian, there was this-I don't know how to describe it other than a shrine? It was a little table with candles and stuff. I told Mr. Milton this, and he said it sounded like a shrine," she started hesitantly, wringing her hands. "I didn't recognize any of the women, or their names until I saw the last one."
Ice dropped in his stomach, sending a chill up his spine so quickly that Sam took a half step back to shift his weight in fear that he might just topple over.
A vent above them kick-started, the accompanying gust of air far too reminiscent of the moaning gusts that had chased him across an autumnal nightmare.
"Winchester isn't that common a surname, is it?" Hannah asked, sounding as if she was asking herself more than him. "We heard about Yellow Eyes in my town, but he happened before I was born, and no one ever spoke much of him…but your mother's name was Mary, wasn't it?"
I'm only as real as you let me be, Sam.
"Yeah," he managed to say, seeing in her aura how sorry she was to have to tell him what she'd seen. "Yeah, it was."
Hannah frowned, a deep downturn of her mouth that only emphasized the sorrow in her eyes.
"Mr. Milton had a similar expression to you," she said, taking his hand in a gentle grasp that he could've pulled away from, but didn't. "I would've let him tell you, but I'm no coward. It would be unfair of me to leave it up to him to tell you when he already has so much to deal with, even if you might've preferred hearing it from him."
"That's kind of you. And I didn't mind hearing it from you," Sam whispered, squeezing her hand. She was right; Sam didn't want Gabe to have to bear any more bad news than he already did these days.
"People tend to underestimate you, don't they?"
"I rather prefer it that way," she said, her conspiratorial wink catching him off guard and dragging a small smile from him. "It makes certain things I do all the more dramatic."
"Duly noted," Sam replied. He'd made a mistake in dismissing her as the quiet, shy type. Underneath all that, he suspected she had a personality that was much more in line with Cas'; a blunt and forward resolve that she drew from when she needed to.
Hannah gave his hand a final pat before letting go, sensing accurately that he was on steadier ground.
"I'll wait here for them. The others are in the lobby waiting, but they don't look too happy with each other."
Sam winced, realizing that the only ones left would be Gabe, Dean, and Benny. Before his conversation with Meg, he would've assumed that Benny's presence would round off the sharp, hostile edges Dean and Gabe dragged from each other, but now that he had the backstory he knew that if anything, Benny's presence was more hurt than help.
Please let them all be in one piece.
In the lobby, the atmosphere was…charged, to say the least. Sam could sense his brother's tension from a mile off, spun tight into dark shades of forest green that retreated from the unwavering wall of Benny's navy-blue aura. They stood at an angle from each other, the six feet or so between them practically a gulf as they pointedly refused to look at the other; Dean out of frantic fear and Benny out of stilted politeness. Gabe sat in a chair closer to the main door, trying to unpick the history that so clearly connected them with golden hawk eyes. He broke his scrutinizing gaze immediately upon spotting him, a smile blooming on his face.
"Sam! How'd it go?" he asked, getting to his feet with a mix of relief upon seeing him and trepidation, no doubt wondering how he would break the horrible news Hannah had already delivered.
"Meg and Cas are talking now, so I'm not sure, but I think they'll work things out," Sam replied, kissing his cheek in what he hoped was a reassuring manner and tugging him back down so they could sit together.
"Hello to you too. What am I, chopped liver?" Dean said sarcastically, swiveling on his heel to face them. Tonight, Dean was sporting a split lip and a cut above his eyebrow held together by a butterfly bandage; the kind that Dean hardly ever bothered with, which meant that Cas must've patched him up.
Gabe scowled at him and began to prepare a scathing retort (and surely not the first to Dean tonight), but Sam beat him to it, fixing a pointed glare at his brother.
"You owe some words to Benny before Cas gets back."
Dean fixed sharp, startled eyes on him before rearing back a bit. He knew that Sam now knew and that there would be no sidling out of this one with excuses or winsome smiles. No one here would take that shit from him; not even Benny, who was now gazing at Dean with a mildly amused air, enjoying how he was being put on the spot.
"Sam…"
"Nope. Not listening," Sam interjected. "Don't make me lock you two in a room to work it out."
"I don't think that'll be necessary," Benny spoke up, an unusually bright shade of pearlescent silver suffusing the consistent navy blue. "Will it, Dean?"
He sounded as affable as ever, but there was a glint of intrigue in his eyes that revealed that he was both unsettled by Dean's presence and curious to see what he had to say; if Dean would say anything to him.
Dean looked at Benny, then at him, switching back and forth with an increasingly shifty gaze and shuffling feet. His aura turned sickly yellow at the edges with guilt, and the supernova of green began to whirl fast around him the more he grew agitated. Dean knew he was caught between a rock and a hard place, and they weren't going to let him out of it.
"You act like I'm going to tear your head off," Benny said wryly after a few long seconds, jerking Dean's attention back to him.
"You might," Dean mumbled, uncharacteristically quiet as his shoulders drew up to his ears in a defensive posture.
More than nervous. He's scared.
Not much scared Dean. Dean Winchester was the one that did the scaring, but Sam wasn't a kid anymore. He knew that just like everyone else, his brother had his faults and weaknesses. Dean, for all his physical strength, folded in emotionally fraught situations and crumpled even more when he came face to face with undeniable proof of his own mistakes.
"I won't," Benny assured, honesty as solid as his aura.
Dean looked back at him, the clear question in his eyes (is he lying?). He wanted out, but there was a large part of him, strangely enough, that didn't want to disappoint him.
Maybe he'll learn something from this, something more than the obvious.
Sam shook his head minutely, and Dean's mouth twisted like he'd bitten a lemon, the cut on his lip tugged so taut it was a second away from bleeding again. His aura rose in a storm of green, soaring over his head in arcs of viridian before it leveled out, crashing down like a felled tree into resignation.
"Fuck it," he said, running his hands through his cropped hair and fixing a wary, hurt prey facing down a predator look on Benny. "Fuck it! Fuck. It."
He strode towards the door, yanking it open and gesturing for Benny to accompany him with a jerky sweep of his arm. It would've been funny if the confrontation wasn't so fraught with implications for Dean; enough that it could either make or break the way Dean handled anything of romantic importance from here on out.
Gabe watched them go, waiting until the door shut behind them to look at Sam with eyes that burned with so many questions that Sam knew it was only through remarkable restraint that he hadn't already been accosted with a ramble of questions.
Sam recounted what Meg had told him earlier, running his hand through Gabe's hair and soaking up his aura like a sponge. The chill of the lobby was effectively warded off by his aura, which expanded happily to fill the space they now had to themselves.
"No offense, but the more I learn about your brother, the more confused I am about how he's even socially functional," Gabe winced, glancing out the door to where the Impala was (illegally) parked out front.
Dean and Benny were leaning against the trunk, with only slices of their shoulders and turned backs visible from their angle. The streetlights partially illuminated them, enough that Sam could tell that they were still talking and not killing each other. Yet.
"Lisa was a good influence in that regard when they were high school sweethearts," Sam admitted with a sigh. "He tried to be better for her, and he tries to be better now for Ben. Dean knows that isn't perfect, but he never really had much incentive to try and fix himself until his son was born."
"Not even you were good enough incentive?" Gabe asked, aghast.
Sam smiled crookedly. Gabe's indignation always made his aura a sight to see and almost made having to calm him down worth it.
"I grew up the same as him, so he didn't have any reason to better himself beyond being the reliable older brother. But Ben won't ever live the way we did, and he needs much more than I ever did from Dean," Sam said firmly, effectively draining the worst of the oranges and reds from Gabe's aura.
"I guess," Gabe grumbled, loath to admit he had a point. Instead, he swiveled in his chair to face him with a serious expression.
"Hannah told you, didn't she?"
Sam nodded, and Gabe huffed out a sigh before tucking a leg up so he could rest his chin on his knee. The soft lighting blurred him a bit, taking the worst of the edges from his tired face and the stubble that darkened his jaw.
Has that been there all day?
"It's fine, for now," Sam said honestly. Thinking of his mother now was like a toothache; a constantly present pain, but ultimately manageable if he didn't focus on it too much. Later, when he was alone, he'd process it better.
Gabe must've read his face because he refrained from prodding him about his feelings on the matter.
"Shit always hits the fan at the same time," he remarked, fingers drumming a beat on the arm of the chair. "I can't even begin to fathom what's in that basement. I never pegged the killer as someone that would admire Yellow Eyes or any murderous predecessor. It could be another sign of devolution, but it's also just as likely it's been there the whole fucking time."
"We have to tell the LPD, don't we?" Sam asked hesitantly. Sneaking into crime scenes was one thing but holding back something this critical would have much graver consequences.
"I did. I kept things very succinct and left out the whole Max Miller bit, but they've sent a patrol car out," Gabe revealed, brow furrowing. "They actually called me while you were with Meg. They found Hoffman's body. I'll have to go soon since I have a gilded invitation from the FBI to study the scene."
Sam stroked his thumb across Gabe's cheek in response, letting it drift down to catch the prickle of stubble. It wasn't often that Gabe wasn't clean-shaven.
"It's good they're letting you back into the investigation. Where did they find him?" he asked, pleased when Gabe leaned into his touch.
"Southview High."
"There? Why?" Sam asked, confused. Out of all the places Hoffman could've been placed, the primary high school of Lawrence wasn't high on the list.
"No clue. They didn't give me many details, but he did graduate from Southview, which is good enough reason for the LPD as of now."
"But not good enough for you," Sam surmised.
"I consider myself a thorough professional," Gabe sniffed, drawing a laugh from Sam.
"I know," he said fondly, thumb smoothing out the crease in Gabe's brow in a now habitual motion. "Things are getting fucked, aren't they?"
Gabe said nothing, but his aura was answer enough. Not even Sam's thumb could smooth away the troubling thoughts that darkened his face, a small, but foreboding sign that things were only going to get worse before they got better.
…
Cas and Meg came back first, Hannah contentedly trailing behind them. Their shoulders brushed together as they walked, Meg's aura a bit more red-violet than the muted bluer purples Sam associated with her, and Cas' was a much lighter, fresher blue tone overall. Things had gone well for them.
"Where's Dean?" Cas asked, ignoring the pointed look gave Meg him.
"Making amends with a former lover," Gabe said bluntly, earning himself a light arm smack.
"You didn't have to phrase it that way," Sam chided, eyeing Cas' aura warily. The last thing they needed was Cas "excusing himself" like he had when he'd found out about Lisa and Ben; Sam wasn't going to let him up into his apartment to bash pots around.
But to his surprise, Cas looked pleased, satisfaction suffusing his face and aura as he looked outside to where Dean and Benny were still talking.
"Good. He was always adamant he would never attempt reconciliation, but I should've known some encouragement from you would do the trick," he said, addressing Sam with a meaningful look.
Sam blinked, taken aback. On one hand, he was both surprised and not that Dean had confided in Cas something so personal he'd clearly done his best to ignore after the fact. But on the other, he was strangely pleased that Cas believed that he still had some sort of sway with Dean; that they were still close brothers. He had to admit that it stung that Dean hadn't confided in him, even if he could think of more than a few reasons as to why he would've been kept in the dark.
"Casper's convinced me to stay. For now," Meg revealed, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was hesitant not in her decision, but in her renewed bond with her old friend, testing the waters with a caution that Sam rarely saw her utilize. It was the same light tread she used around volatile customers at the Roadhouse.
"Better the devil you know than the one you don't," Cas replied perfunctorily, "You are safe with Benny in a city you know well than roads you don't, and Hannah is still safe in her dorms."
"It'd be better if I could stay with you," Hannah interjected. "The dorms won't be safe for long if there really are tunnels running beneath campus that are being used."
"She has a point," Gabe remarked. "It's a shame your apartment's been compromised. I know the LPD wrapped up investigating there, but whether or not you go back is up to you."
"He'd rather not for as long as possible," Meg sighed before smirking devilishly, "You see, he's gotten quite comfortable living with his boyfriend."
Sam stifled a laugh as Cas crossed his arms stiffly, brows crinkled as he blushed.
"Dean isn't my- he isn't-"
"You can't even say the word," Meg teased, dark eyes sparkling with mirth. "You're still just as shy about boys as you were in high school."
"Maybe Dean likes it when he's shy," Hannah suggested slyly before Cas could respond, prompting him to turn on his heel and gaze at his sister in aghast.
"Oh, she doesn't pull her punches," Gabe snickered.
"This is ridiculous. I don't have to speak to either of you regarding this subject," he declared, throwing up his hands.
"But on the contrary! As your experienced confidante, I simply must remain informed on this topic," Meg said, hand on her hip and an easy smile purer than her standard dark smirk gracing her face. "You can't tell me you practically moved in with Dean Winchester and not have some juicy details to spill."
Cas' blush darkened, only confirming that he must've had more than a few adventures and instances with Dean that kindled the crush he had.
Sam would've felt sorry for him if his belief that Dean returned some sort of interest in Cas wasn't so strong. There was the possibility that Dean might try to push Cas away or repress his feelings; that was always a possibility with Dean, but Sam didn't think that Dean would succeed. Cas understood his brother in a way that few people did and held an astonishing amount of stubbornness. He had the wherewithal to go toe to toe with Dean and hold his own where it mattered, and Sam knew he'd never accept Dean's bullshit excuses when they got to that point in their relationship.
"Oh, I think they've made up," Hannah remarked, cutting off the well-humored argument Meg and Cas' conversation was turning into.
Sam turned and watched as Dean awkwardly clapped Benny's shoulder when he was tugged into a one-armed hug. The dark obscured their faces, but Sam didn't need to see their features when he could more than make out their auras. Relief colored Dean's aura light, and Benny's swirled with satisfaction.
"About time," Meg said, mouth quirking as Benny gesticulated and said something that made Dean nod and suffused his aura with a mixture of embarrassment and happiness. "Benny missed being friends with him. God knows why."
She shook her head in disgust, but Sam could see the flit of happiness in her aura that the bitter chapter had been closed on a positive note. It was a good thing she didn't know Sam could see auras because she'd be enraged to learn that her heartless, I-could-care-less reputation was sometimes thoroughly ruined by it.
"Shit. I think I left my journal in your apartment," Gabe swore as he rifled through his bag.
"Then let's go get it," Sam replied easily, already pulling out his keys. He knew how important it was to Gabe and his work process, and besides, he was hoping he could snag a few minutes of quality time before they had to part ways.
Judging by Gabe's anticipatory aura, he'd come to the same conclusion, taking his hand with a conspiratorial smile.
"Hey, get your bag, Sammy!" Dean called after them as the elevator doors opened. Cas had moved to stand by his side immediately, encroaching on his personal space with a boldness that Sam wasn't surprised to see Dean accept.
"Where am I going?" Sam asked, ignoring the irritated tongue click Gabe made as he clutched his hand and dragged him into the elevator.
"Places," was the singular word Dean got out before Gabe practically punched the "close" button shut and they were cut off from the lobby with a thud.
Coming from Dean's mouth, places only had one real meaning. It was the same reply he got when he was shaken awake in the middle of the night by his brother for a training session, or even further back when they'd been small enough to have to sit up to see out the windows of the backseat of the Impala and John was steering them down foreign roads filled with signs he couldn't yet read. Places meant to bring yourself and your guard raised high, along with a knife slipped in your boot and the expectation that the night would be long.
"Why do I get the bad feeling you're going to get hurt tonight?" Gabe asked stiffly, arms crossed and eyes glaring hard at him.
Sam tried to soften the expression with a kiss and pulled back to see that he only partially succeeded in wiping the displeased expression off his face.
"I most likely won't," he soothed, which only brought back the glare full force.
"Most likely isn't a guarantee."
"No, but it's the best I can offer," Sam replied honestly, keeping Gabe's face cradled in his hands. The stubble he'd noticed earlier looked even darker in the harsh light of the elevator, rasping against his palms in a way that Sam was unused to. He'd only ever held Jess's face like this, and the difference was night and day.
Gabe said nothing, but his silence wasn't bad. Far from it, if the cherry red appearing like rose blooms in his aura were any indication. It curled around Sam's hands and narrowed his focus until all he cared about was Gabe.
Sam leaned in, closing the scant distance between them with a surge that forced Gabe to cling to his wrists to keep upright. It was exactly like the first time but better, because somehow despite Sam initiating Gabe was taking the reins and leading him with an expertise that left Sam just on the edge of completely losing his mind. Tonight, his aura radiated with a strong energy that Sam couldn't even hope to resist, and he didn't even bother trying.
Note to self: work on building up a tolerance towards Gabe's aura so I don't combust every time I kiss him.
It was hard for Sam to tear himself away just long enough to make sure no one was in the hall, much less to open the door. Gabe insisted on not letting go of him one bit, leaving Sam to act as their legs and eyes as they reached his apartment.
"Gabe, let me unlock the-shit," he hissed when Gabe managed to latch onto a sensitive spot on his neck he'd nearly forgotten he had.
Gabe laughed into his skin when Sam arched his neck and wrapped a tight arm around his waist with a grunt, using the other hand to fumble with the keys. His aura shone with the cherry red that had plagued Sam for weeks, the color ruby bright and distracting Sam as much as Gabe's mouth and hands were, and why wouldn't this door open-
The keys clicked, and they fell inside in a tangle of limbs. Sam managed to slide the deadbolt in place (good enough for now) before he gave Gabe his full attention, basking in the dizzying, tingly warmth of his aura and the welcome heat of his mouth.
"Couch?" Gabe asked in between gasped breaths for air, tugging at his clothes and working his eager hands beneath his shirt.
A thrill of anticipation and some nerves shot down Sam's spine and poured gasoline on top of the already burning fire in his stomach.
"Couch," he agreed before lifting Gabe up in a dicey play at regaining control. He'd been at his whims ever since they stepped out of the elevator, and while the novel experience at being so thoroughly manhandled in the span of a few minutes was exhilarating, Sam didn't want Gabe to be left lacking.
"Oh, that's nice-" was all Sam let Gabe get out in breathless surprise before he steered them towards the couch in the dark, relying on muscle memory to get there in one piece.
"Impressed?" Sam asked, tossing Gabe onto the couch before lowering himself on top of him. He didn't want to press him into the couch-not when it was so dangerously bow-backed-so he took care and propped himself on his forearms.
Gabe laced his hands around the back of his neck and tugged him down in response, moaning so wantonly into the kiss that Sam couldn't help but shift an arm, grasping Gabe's collar for support and brushing the jut of bone along the way.
The explosion of color in Gabe's aura made Sam rear back from the flash of heat and dancing light, but his hand remained. Gabe clamped a hand around his wrist and used the other to tug him down to whisper in his ear.
"Close, but not quite where I want it."
He slid his hand up to curve around his neck, and Sam promptly short-circuited (this is how he likes it?) as Gabe's pulse jumped beneath his touch in time with the pulsing beat of the white-gold and red that dominated the normal yellows and golds.
So this is how I die, Sam thought dazedly as Gabe tugged on his hair and wrapped his legs around his hips, the move so brazen he barely registered it in real time.
Unfortunately, right when Sam was ready to sink on top of Gabe (sagging couch be damned), his phone rang.
"Ignore it," Sam urged, already reaching for his back pocket as he started a trail of kisses at the top of Gabe's jaw with some bite to them. He'd toss the stupid thing into the hall and forget it even existed, s soon as he actually got a grip on it.
But Gabe was quicker and angrier, nimbly snagging his phone (for the second time that night) and looking at the caller ID with a scowl that only deepened when he saw whoever it was. With nothing but the dim glow lighting his face, Gabe looked like an avenging angel.
Uh oh.
"Fuck you, Dean Winchester," he spat so decisively that Sam had to sit up and stifle a shocked wheeze of laughter. Of course his brother would be the one calling. They should've been back down by now.
I'm never going to able to look him in the eye again.
On the other side, he could hear Dean begin to say something, but Gabe wasn't giving him the chance to speak.
"How about instead of interrupting us, make out with your own boyfriend, asshole!"
He hung up before Dean could get some kind of word in edgewise, but it was too late. A combination of embarrassment and laughter drove Sam to sit up on his haunches, and the charged mood was thoroughly ruined.
"I can't believe you did that!" Sam laughed, already imagining the awkwardness of the Impala ride ahead. Hopefully, he could foist the worst of his brother's pettiness onto Cas, who would handle Dean with all the blunt grace he could hope for.
"He deserved it, the bastard. I could've done a lot with an extra five minutes," Gabe sighed, reluctantly disentangling himself. "So rude."
Sam stifled the rest of his snickers, doing his best to tamp down the remnants of adrenaline and tingling warmth that clung to his skin. While Dean's call was probably the most ill-timed and unwanted he'd gotten yet, it did remind him that they were on a bit of a time crunch.
He packed, which went quickly since, contrary to what Dean probably expected, he still had a go-bag stuffed beneath his bed. It was a little emptier and lacked certain items that it'd held when Sam still lived at home (weapons more illegal than a switchblade for instance), but he knew Dean would supplement what he didn't have from the hidden compartment in the Impala if it became necessary.
Gabe waited out in the living room, making some work calls Sam could only hear snatches off through the apartment's walls and getting himself settled down, much to Sam's amusement. He hadn't thought he'd had that much of an effect of Gabe; not when he was the one with the giant golden aura that transported Sam to a new dimension every time he got close to it, but perhaps Sam wasn't as rusty as he'd initially thought he was.
"Try not to die tonight," Gabe joked when he emerged.
"Try not to get too irritated at your colleagues," Sam retorted, accepting the relapse to levity with ease. They had no time for anything more serious, and they both knew it.
Still, Sam tried to infuse as much serious, heart-felt sentiments (be careful, be safe, be alert) in their good-bye kiss in the elevator. He'd never been good at keeping anything casual, the direct opposite of Dean's averseness for anything beyond casual, and he wasn't going to treat Gabe any differently. Not when he wanted this to last.
"I'll miss you too, Samantha," Gabe teased when they parted. The light that had made him look harsh on the way up somehow softened him on the trip down, highlighting the pastels in his aura.
"Don't call me that-Gabe, mmf!"
Gabe took the opportunity to steal a kiss, somehow managing to pull back just as the doors dinged open.
Sam could already hear Dean going a mile a minute about how long they'd taken and decency and Sammy, you better be listening to me, but he only had eyes for Gabe, who was slipping off into the night, ducking behind a confused Cas to hide from Dean's indignation.
Wily bastard, Sam thought affectionately as Gabe hopped from person to person, ducking behind Hannah, then Benny, and finally Meg, who rolled her eyes and shoved him towards the door.
Gabe blew him a kiss before scampering off, letting the door shut behind him with a bang that caught Dean's attention and stopped him mid-rant.
"Was that-hey wait a fucking second! Milton!"
AUTHOR'S NOTE
A largely reconciliatory chapter this time around, and I think the first chapter this year I've posted that hasn't been like a month after the last one lol. Both the Meg/Cas reunion and the Dean/Benny history were things I've been waiting to drop foreverrrrrr, like since the middle of writing Chromaticity forever! Plus, Sam and Gabe got to have fun a bit, which they deserve since the next few chapters will be not so fun for them...